Away is a new Gnome Shell 3.8 theme made by Ukrainian artist Kraig Dunkan, and in contrast to its name it isn’t very far away from the default – the exact element that makes this particular theme worth a look.

Although Away stays in the design trodden of Adwaita, it does differentiate itself where people may need it, like the top panel color being a bit more grayish and thus more suitable for use with darker wallpapers, or more stylish with lighter. Also, the boundaries are not outlined in the dock and the workspace chooser and the frames are darker with the correct dose of transparency.

Other small differences are the more elegant and transparent window overview close button frames, the white background search that is more sufficiently individualized and the more stylish opaque “frequent” and “all” buttons on the bottom of the application overview screen.

Sometimes you don’t have to change everything to offer something that is truly different. This theme manages to satisfy the need for something slightly different without taking all the good things that Adwaita offers away.